How Antonio Conte Has Sparked a Napoli Title Bid Into Life

Antonio Conte is not a man used to failure. His squad at Tottenham learned that the hard way. 

Faced with the prospect of a second season without silverware in north London, the Italian head coach took no prisoners in his frank assessment of his players. 

“They don’t play for something important here,” he told reporters after a 3-3 draw with Southampton put a serious dent in their European ambitions. “They don’t want to play under pressure, they don’t want to play under stress.

“We are 11 players that go into the pitch. I see selfish players, I see players that don’t want to help each other and don’t put their heart.”

Heart is one of Conte’s core principles. It is what served him so well as a player, in a career that saw him win five Scudetti and a Champions League title with Juventus. 

It has also fuelled his decorated career as a coach. His trophy-less stint at Spurs has proved the exception to date. At Napoli, he’s determined to ensure it doesn’t become the mean.

Success has tended to follow the 55-year-old from dugout to dugout. Promotions with Bari and Siena were followed by a treble of titles with Juve, before knocking his former club off their perch with Inter in 2021. There was even a Premier League triumph with Chelsea sandwiched in-between. 

His style is confrontational, his demeanour often irascible. But it’s never dull. A perfect match for the ferocity of the Partenopei fanbase.

They are beginning to embrace Conte after a slow start. An opening weekend defeat by Hellas Verona coupled with a shaky penalty shoot-out win over Serie B Modena in the Coppa Italia raised eyebrows.

So too did the club’s transfer policy in the summer. One analytics guru described it as “the most enjoyably stupid window a bigger team has had” as they picked apart the decisions that led to the arrivals of the likes of Billy Gilmour, Romelu Lukaku and Scott McTominay. 

Conte has always sought control over recruitment at any club he has worked at – a trait that has seen him fall out with more than one chairman. His fingerprints were all over Napoli’s summer dealings too, Aurelio De Laurentiis handing his new man the chequebook. 

So far, his judgement appears sound. Alessandro Buongiorno’s arrival from Torino appears to have plugged the Kim Min-jae-shaped hole left by the South Korean’s departure in 2023. Lukaku is doing what he does best and finding his way through Serie A defences – just as he did for Conte at Inter. McTominay and David Neres have also excited in spells. 

More than this though, it is what they bring off the pitch that has seen Conte target these new recruits. 

Buying into his regime and methods is a non-negotiable and his players’ actions prove they are doing just so. No player took a day off following the victory over Monza that propelled them to top spot. All thoughts immediately turned to their next match with Como. 

Since defeat in Verona, Napoli are unbeaten in six – Juventus the only team to take a point off them in that run. It’s a sequence that has seen Conte named Serie A’s coach of the month.

It is also a sequence that has sparked excitement over the possibility of another Scudetto arriving on the south coast. With no European football to contend with, there is substance behind the early anticipation. 

The last to deliver on that sense of hope was Luciano Spalletti, forever an icon in these parts after delivering the title last year. Now head coach of the national team, his brief at Napoli is a watching one. But the 65-year-old likes what he sees. 

“There are similarities,” he told press this week when pushed by local press to compare his title winners with Conte’s side. “You have a very experienced coach. He knows the path he has to take.”

Conte will hope that path leads to silverware once again.

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